In Medias Res
by Krimz
Summary: "January 2, 1992. Science. A skill: the ability to produce solutions in a set domain. Solutions. That's all I want. Starting today, that's all I want." One shot.


**A Bo****nes blurb! No time frame, no spoilers** - **just playing in the Brennan's brain sandbox. :)**

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Brennan enters Booth's office without announcement and without flourish and without a courteous pause at the doorjamb. She's past that, of course, but she'd never done it to begin with. Booth's pen pauses in the middle of a word—what she has to say, regardless of the fact that Booth cannot predict it, has taken precedence over the –_ing_ waiting to be written—and Brennan announces, "Sweets believes I need to find out if there was a specific instance in which I made a conscious decision to redefine my perceptions of the world."

No hellos, no how are yous. Booth has been wondering this, too. "_Is_ there a specific instance?"

She places a piece of war torn loose leaf paper on his desk and the tattered fringes have been left intact, but Brennan never leaves them on. Never. She speaks. "I found this. Or… I've had it. But I cannot understand it. It seems I, at one time, thought in convoluted semantics. I was hoping you could help by telling me if this is what Sweets needs."

Booth nods and Brennan nods and she leaves, expressionless.

He sees her straight shoulders fall when she thinks she's out of eyesight. He abandons his forgotten, unwritten suffix and lifts the paper, looking under furrowed brows to the distant corner where she disappeared. Then, with eyes so eager to read that they flick ahead between heavy, handwritten passages, he reads the missing page of answers.

xxx

January 2, 1992

My bed sheets smell different. They smell different because they smell the same. They smell the same but I don't feel the same when I smell them, because the detergent is what we all smell like. Me, Russ, Dad, but especially my mother. I would think of her when I smelled that synthetic spring breeze but now I just don't think of her. I think of the lack of her. I think of the empty spaces in the house where she could possibly have stood, though the spaces now weren't the spaces then, because time has passed and she's gone and nothing is ever exactly the same because a location is both a point in space and time and time is passed and now is not then. Maybe that's nothing; maybe that's everything.

My sheets do not smell different just because my mom is gone. That's not possible. I _feel_ different.

But corn flakes taste different. They taste different because they taste the same. Exactly the same, but I'm not happy when I eat them like I used to be. Corn flakes were Dad's thing because Mom hated colored and artificially sweetened cereal and Dad would wait until she left the room to spoon sugar into Russ's bowl while I would nervously watch for Mom's return—and when I wasn't looking, he'd spill some in mine, too, because he knew I wouldn't break the rules on my own. I used to think of Dad when the flakes would tink against the porcelain. Now I don't think of him. I think of the lack of him and of all the rules I'll never break and the sugar canister untouched in the cabinet because I'd never know how much is just enough without him. Even if I guessed the right amount, it wouldn't taste the same because he was not the one to spoon it in. Though that doesn't make sense, really, because it's exactly the same sugar and exactly the same cereal. It shouldn't matter who puts it in. Maybe that's nothing; maybe that's everything.

Corn flakes do not taste different just because my dad is gone. That's not possible. I just feel different.

Something is different though and it's the way the house sounds just after Russ's car pulls out of the driveway. That's a difference I can defend. One less body in the house, one less source of mass, the sound waves are bound to be moving differently. So the house sounds different, though I suppose it would sound just as different if, say, we'd taken the couch out of the living room. I'm guessing. I'll have to ask Dad. Dad would know because he's teaching sound waves to his 7th graders—

No, I can't ask Dad. Dad is gone.

I could go on without the answer to my senseless question, sure, because Dad's gone. But why would I? Why _should_ I? A textbook will hold the same information I'd get from him, and although a textbook doesn't have eyes that will sparkle with excitement when I skim the index for direction, and although a textbook won't use some insane example unique to me that will make me laugh and learn and care just a little bit more, it will still have the answers.

And it will always have the answers, always exactly the same, because words can't walk off of a page in the middle of the night.

Subjectivity in explanation is useless, anyway.

Subjectivity is useless in general.

And honestly, people are strange when it comes to cause and effect. Thinking that the smell of detergent or the taste of cereal could actually change. They can't change. My feelings about them, however, can change. But they, in their physical existence, cannot change.

So there are some things in life that will never change.

I think it's best to depend on those things. Tangible things. Real things.

The child service man told me it's okay to cry and hurt and be angry, but I don't think it is. I think it's a waste of time. Detergent can make my clothes smell like spring breezes thus make me think of my mother. Sugar can make my cereal sweet and make me recall my father. The physical mass of people leaving this house can make it sound different, and all these things can make me feel alone.

But crying does not bring back the missing and being angry doesn't bring back the dead.

Science. A skill: the ability to produce solutions in a set domain.

Solutions. That's all I want.

Starting today, that's all I want.

xxx

"Do you remember writing this?" Sweets finally asks, silence weighing down his office like guilt.

"What you really want to know is if I remember deciding this, correct?" Brennan drags her fingers down the microfiber couch, watching the fabric darken, and admires the impression of her hand.

Sweets has no response other than a nod and Brennan knows her sporadic and arbitrary moments of implication intuition always throw him.

"Yes. I remember deciding this, because I have to remember that decision every day."

She slowly swipes the couch's fibers back into proper direction and it is as if her hand had never left a mark.


End file.
